Ohio... you have been calling this for a while--the collapse of the Steelers. You were right about the myths of the Steeler drafts. They haven't been that great and now they are reaping what they have sowed. While next year's picks will probably be high given what were are seeing so far, I don't know if Tomlin and Colbert can judge talent well enough for it to matter...

LenSherwood wrote:Ohio... you have been calling this for a while--the collapse of the Steelers. You were right about the myths of the Steeler drafts. They haven't been that great and now they are reaping what they have sowed. While next year's picks will probably be high given what were are seeing so far, I don't know if Tomlin and Colbert can judge talent well enough for it to matter...

Thanks Len. I was going through all my posts regarding the game. The game was driving me crazy. I was thinking we had a bad team. Reality was much worse. Honestly I see no hope. Even Ben didn't look himself. Or maybe, thinking like some others, he is not so great anymore. Ok he didn't have time. But not once did he show us something. Not a spark. Nothing. Our drafts have a lot to do with it. We have spent a lot of high pick on OL and RB. Those are two very troubled areas. I honestly think and hope that we fire Tomlin and Haley at the end of the season. Haley because obviously he doesn't know what he is doing. Tomlin because the team, with him, is slowly but steadily deteriorating. After 7 season I realize that maybe Cowher was not so bad. Ok he sucked in the playoffs and in clutch moments. Ok he could not train or find a qb ( only Ben after so many wasted years). BUT HE COULD COACH AND GET THE TEAM READY. Tomlin not so much. We have always the same problems in the same areas... How come ?

I actually think it's more about drafting and talent on the roster (or the lack thereof) than it is the inability of Tomlin to get the guys ready. Keep in mind he seemed to do a pretty good job of that when he was dealing with the end of the Cowher era drafts. now that he's stuck with the drafts from the last seven years and almost all of the quality has left the roster to be replaced by mediocrity he is looking incapable. I, too, thought we might be in for a not so good team this year, but 58 minutes without an offensive point against a 6-10 team from last year? We sucked. Plain and simple. I thought Ben looked OK, overall, when he did have any time. As soon as it was obvious that all four of our third string running backs who are vying for the starting job suck, the LB's and DE's just pinned their ears back. Remember the first pass Ben threw? The guys in the booth were fawning over the coverage but look at the replay. Ben comes out ice cold and hits a 45 yard streak pass RIGHT ON THE MONEY and Sanders lets it go through his hands. Unfortunately, after DeCastro decided to torpedo our hopes of having any continuity at OL this year and after it became apparent that Dwyer left a sack of his fumble weed in Redman's locker when he left it's gonna be a long long season for Ben.

A lot of the focus has been on the offensive side of the ball, and rightly so. I look at this. How does this TEN team score on us at all? They had over 100 yards on the ground, dropping us to 23rd overall against the run. How is this possible? We had Foote most of the game. Where was Timmons?

Steelers 'D' should be thanking the offense for taking the spot light this week.

I am going to withhold judgement on this team until after Monday night in Cinci. Here is hoping that this team is not the Chinese fire drill that it portrayed itself as in the opener, that all of the ineptitude and lack of physicality and skill were merely and anomaly. The real problem is the leadership void accumulating over the past 3-4 years. Gone are Hines, A. Smith, Farrior, Harrison, Batch. The skills had deteriorated because of age or injury and it was time for them to go (I'd take exception to Hines and Harrison) but no one on the current roster has any leadership clout other than Troy and maybe Ike on D, Heath and Ben on O. It is time to see if Ben has it in him to carry this team on his back. Oh, and by the way, once I saw the likes of Gradkowski as second on the depth chart at QB (as cool of a dude as he was at Latrobe) I surmised we were one injury away from a 4 win or less season.

Honestly we might go winless. If opposing QBs stay healthy ( even Weeden as Locker showed us Sunday). My only last hope is that we start running ONLY Hurry up no Huddle Offense. Which moved the ball in the Fourth Quarter. When Haley "adjusted" the offense he produced ZERO ZERO ZERO in the score and ZERO FIRST DOWN IN THE ENTIRE THIRD QUARTER. The guy was completely outcoached. Couldn't master anything. And in Today NFL you need to produce at Least 25 points a game against anybody to have any type of Playoff Hope. We could not score against a JV High School Team

Honestly we might go winless. If opposing QBs stay healthy ( even Weeden as Locker showed us Sunday). My only last hope is that we start running ONLY Hurry up no Huddle Offense. Which moved the ball in the Fourth Quarter. When Haley "adjusted" the offense he produced ZERO ZERO ZERO in the score and ZERO FIRST DOWN IN THE ENTIRE THIRD QUARTER. The guy was completely outcoached. Couldn't master anything. And in Today NFL you need to produce at Least 25 points a game against anybody to have any type of Playoff Hope. We could not score against a JV High School Team

Which opponents do you see providing the 4 wins, Heaven? I am not sure that you can count the two Clowns games as the Steelers have found a way to blow at least one of those in years past when they were better than this team. Maybe they will upset someone, win one Clown game, maybe beat Oakland and Miami?

LenSherwood wrote:Which opponents do you see providing the 4 wins, Heaven? I am not sure that you can count the two Clowns games as the Steelers have found a way to blow at least one of those in years past when they were better than this team. Maybe they will upset someone, win one Clown game, maybe beat Oakland and Miami?

Len, I believe that Heaven says it like... Ok our team sucks this year BUT you we still have a decent QB, a half decent Defense ( Not the best Not the worse in the league ), some decent WR, one decent TE later in the Year, one decent RB later in the year. Considering other teams melt down and all... 4 Wins are reachable. It does seem impossible to all of us given the way we have played. I only hope that we go No Huddle the entire game ( which is the trend in the League and with Chip Kelly success this year will be the norm in three four years time ).

Honestly, having seen the lesson of the " Suck for Luck" story, I hope we suck really bad in order to have better draft picks. There is no point in winning useless games. You only lose better draft positions which are very valuable throughout the entire draft. There is a HUGE difference between picking at number 2 or 3 and picking at number 10 11. You have all the players at all positions you want/need or you can get good value for a trade down which would be very valuable given our numerous hole in the roster.

Len when I predicted 4-12 a month ago many were in disagreement on such a low win percentage. Fast forward and now many think even 4 wins are unattainable. I don't know which 4 games we will win. I think we will beat the Brownies once and maybe even the Ravens once. Then somewhere along the line we will win a few more. Miami stinks for sure so thats may be a third one then someone we face will give us Bulletin board material and we will rise up out of the ashes of titty jousting to claw one last miserable W.